10 questions for Election 2014

Seven months out from Election Day, there are a few things we can say with a high degree of confidence: 2014 is shaping up to be a good year for the GOP. Republicans have a decent shot of taking the Senate and possibly padding their House majority. And Obamacare is the biggest, perhaps the dominant, issue in the battle for Congress.

Beyond that broad-brush picture, it’s anyone’s guess.

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As the days fly by, though, the hazy outlook will become clearer, and more clues will emerge about whether this will be simply a good year for the GOP or a rout. The policy terms on which the election is fought will be increasingly cemented in place. And some important intraparty struggles — especially within the GOP — will begin to shake out well before Election Day.

Here’s a look at 10 key questions that will be answered between now and Nov. 4 — and will go a long way toward deciding the election:

The best Democratic recruit this cycle is Michelle Nunn in Georgia, a first-time candidate who didn’t vote for Obamacare and can run as a pro-business moderate. She’s well positioned to win the open seat of retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss if a flawed Republican emerges as her opponent.

Rep. Paul Broun is the candidate who most worries national GOP leaders as a Todd-Akin-in-waiting, but he has run a surprisingly disciplined campaign and is not the only Republican who might blow it.

The top two finishers in a seven-way primary on May 20 will face off in a July 22 runoff. Watch for national money to pour in on both sides during those two months and for Democrats to boost their preferred opponent, similar to the way Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) ran ads calling Akin “too conservative” before his primary.

The Republican establishment also worries about North Carolina, fearing that a tea party or libertarian candidate may prevail in the May 6 primary to take on Sen. Kay Hagan. American Crossroads is spending $1 million on ads promoting state House Speaker Thom Tillis, its favorite.

Can Thad Cochran survive?

The Mississippi Senate primary on June 3 could be either Waterloo for the tea party or a catastrophic setback for establishment Republicans that triggers a rare, competitive Deep South Senate race.

Democrats hope incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran, 76, will be the Dick Lugar of 2014, a venerated political fixture denied the GOP nomination by an ultra-ideological opponent who falters in November. They’ve recruited a former congressman, Travis Childers, just in case Cochran loses his primary.

Some Republicans fear the same outcome. Mississippi GOP leader Henry Barbour warned that Cochran’s primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, could be “the next Richard Mourdock or Sharron Angle,” two ghosts of Senate races past who threw away winnable races for the GOP. A series of McDaniel comments, from his hesitation on the issue of Hurricane Katrina relief to provocative comments on race and homosexuality he made as a radio host, have fueled Democratic dreams of a dogfight in the fall.

McDaniel supporters — as well as some powerful Republicans in Washington — doubt that any Democrat could win a statewide federal election in Mississippi. In any case, Cochran’s fate on primary night will send ripples through the GOP and potentially put a new Senate race on the map.

There’s no intra-GOP collision this year more public than the clash between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate Conservatives Fund, the rogue group backing an array of combative primary challengers to GOP incumbents.

McConnell and the GOP establishment have vowed to wipe out SCF. The group, led by former Jim DeMint aide Matt Hoskins, now faces enormous pressure to come out of primary season with a big win.

The candidates SCF has endorsed in Kentucky, Louisiana and Kansas appear to have fizzled (Kansas radiologist Milton Wolf was revealed to have posted X-rays of gunshot victims on the Internet). The last remaining endorsee who may knock off an incumbent is McDaniel, the opponent of Cochran.

SCF has endorsed in open-seat races — Nebraska and Oklahoma — but failure to oust a sitting senator would leave the group struggling to explain why its expensive war on the establishment was worth it.

Does the Supreme Court throw out the contraception mandate?

During oral arguments last month, a majority of justices sounded critical of the federal government’s mandate that companies like Hobby Lobby cover employee contraception despite religious objections. The swing vote could be Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wondered aloud about unraveling the whole health care law if the contraception mandate gets thrown out.

The court’s decision, likely to be announced near the end of the term in June, could inflame the culture wars. Upholding the mandate would incense social conservatives, who might be more likely to mobilize in hopes of a legislative fix next Congress. Striking it down would give Democrats an issue to galvanize women’s groups and maybe even female voters. Either way, there will be a summer debate about birth control.

Will Chris Christie be GOP surrogate-in-chief?

Say this for the New Jersey governor: The home-state mess known as Bridgegate hasn’t undercut Christie’s fundraising.

Under Christie’s leadership, the Republican Governors Association has collected big checks at a better than healthy clip: On Friday, the RGA announced it collected $23.5 million in the first three months of 2014, $11 million more than its Democratic counterpart.

If Christie remains a high-dollar draw, less clear is whether he’ll be an effective public face for Republicans this fall. A few hours after the RGA announced its fundraising haul last week, ABC News reported that a grand jury had convened to investigate the Fort Lee traffic scandal. At RGA events in Florida, Illinois and elsewhere, Christie has been dogged by Democratic hecklers and demonstrators.